How much longer should I be waiting to exchange and complete?

Tiglet2

kplt0 said:

GoogleMeNow said:

GDB2222 said:

Tiglet2 said:

The report on title is done when all (or most) enquiries are satisfactorily answered and your solicitor has all the paperwork on the property.  The report comprises of a lot of documents for you to read, together with official documents for your signature and return.  The report takes some time to do, as the solicitor has to review the file and collate all the paperwork to send to you.  Be patient.  It is in hand but it's not a quick turnaround as it is work intensive and there may be other files that have a greater priority than yours.

No dates can be discussed until the paperwork you have to sign is returned to them.  If you have a deposit to pay, the solicitor will let you know when they need this.

As an aside, you cannot count weeks when the offer is accepted.  As far as the solicitor is concerned, their work didn't start until they received draft contract papers from the seller's solicitor so any complaints about how long it has taken, will only be considered by the date of receipt of draft contract papers.  In any case, with the mortgage offer not being received until 13th January, exchange and completion could not take place before that date.

On a practical basis, is there anything useful that the OP can do to speed things up?  Obviously, responding quickly to any queries is a good thing.
 

Yes, the OP can respond to any requests as quickly as possible, but since they are the buyer, it is third parties who are required to answer queries, which could be the vendor (the building company who won't know anything about the property), maybe the previous owner (who may not be willing to assist), the Land Registry (for updated title), the council (planning permissions etc), the lender (discharging their charge) etc etc.  Solicitors cannot dictate how quickly these third parties respond unfortunately!

What I was looking for was practical advice, which again not many people have really given other than 'you are not their priority', I have seen been informed we are in fact their longest conveyancing client and the vendor has been pushing them in the last 2 weeks with no reply. I have responded to all queries promptly. There are no third parties involved other than the solicitor and of course the mortgage provider. The previous owner had filled out all relevant documents and completed necessary items before they sold to the house builder, nothing to do with the council needs done, ALL searches have been complete for months since November. Land Registry Title is in the name of the builder. Even contacted the lender, they said there is no issues and they have been waiting for funds to be drawn by our solicitor. There are no third parties at this stage as everything has been done, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect a simple sale with immediate vacant possession and no other issues to have the work completed by the solicitor after 5-6 weeks. 

GoogleMeNow was responding to GDB2222's post actually. 

GoogleMeNow's response is correct - it is the seller and seller's solicitor and their third parties who need to respond to your solicitor's enquiries, therefore the third parties mentioned are the seller's, not yours. It seems that the title is in the builder's name so that is a satisfied enquiry.  

kplt0

Tiglet2 said:

kplt0 said:

GoogleMeNow said:

GDB2222 said:

Tiglet2 said:

The report on title is done when all (or most) enquiries are satisfactorily answered and your solicitor has all the paperwork on the property.  The report comprises of a lot of documents for you to read, together with official documents for your signature and return.  The report takes some time to do, as the solicitor has to review the file and collate all the paperwork to send to you.  Be patient.  It is in hand but it's not a quick turnaround as it is work intensive and there may be other files that have a greater priority than yours.

No dates can be discussed until the paperwork you have to sign is returned to them.  If you have a deposit to pay, the solicitor will let you know when they need this.

As an aside, you cannot count weeks when the offer is accepted.  As far as the solicitor is concerned, their work didn't start until they received draft contract papers from the seller's solicitor so any complaints about how long it has taken, will only be considered by the date of receipt of draft contract papers.  In any case, with the mortgage offer not being received until 13th January, exchange and completion could not take place before that date.

On a practical basis, is there anything useful that the OP can do to speed things up?  Obviously, responding quickly to any queries is a good thing.
 

Yes, the OP can respond to any requests as quickly as possible, but since they are the buyer, it is third parties who are required to answer queries, which could be the vendor (the building company who won't know anything about the property), maybe the previous owner (who may not be willing to assist), the Land Registry (for updated title), the council (planning permissions etc), the lender (discharging their charge) etc etc.  Solicitors cannot dictate how quickly these third parties respond unfortunately!

What I was looking for was practical advice, which again not many people have really given other than 'you are not their priority', I have seen been informed we are in fact their longest conveyancing client and the vendor has been pushing them in the last 2 weeks with no reply. I have responded to all queries promptly. There are no third parties involved other than the solicitor and of course the mortgage provider. The previous owner had filled out all relevant documents and completed necessary items before they sold to the house builder, nothing to do with the council needs done, ALL searches have been complete for months since November. Land Registry Title is in the name of the builder. Even contacted the lender, they said there is no issues and they have been waiting for funds to be drawn by our solicitor. There are no third parties at this stage as everything has been done, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect a simple sale with immediate vacant possession and no other issues to have the work completed by the solicitor after 5-6 weeks. 

GoogleMeNow was responding to GDB2222's post actually. 

GoogleMeNow's response is correct - it is the seller and seller's solicitor and their third parties who need to respond to your solicitor's enquiries, therefore the third parties mentioned are the seller's, not yours. It seems that the title is in the builder's name so that is a satisfied enquiry.  

Yes but my solicitor has informed me over a month ago all enquiries were complete and the vendors have been hounding them for the last 2 to get this complete. There is in my eyes no reasonable excuse for why the last 5-6 weeks has taken so long, there just isn't. I am unsure why everyone is so quick to blame me for this. I was seeking advice and again, nobody has given me that, I would rather not take any more comments on the post as as previously stated there ARE NO OUTSTANDING ENQUIRIES ON ANY SIDE, the mortgage offer is in place, searches were fine, the only thing I was waiting for was the report on title - this is now done and this is being exchanged today. The lag time was due to my solicitor essentially being lazy with report complication - as acknowledged by him, the estate agent and the vendor. 

Thanks for the one useful comment I received on this post by Flugelhorn. 

JustNate

kplt0 said:

gwynlas said:

These things rarely take less than three months so providing there are no problems count thirteen weeks from offer acceptance.
Are you looking at exchanging and completing on same day?

We have been on this well over 13 weeks now, we put the offer in at the end of August, and was accepted in early September after some back and forth. The valuation then brought back high damp readings and we had to have a damp and timber survey carried out. Once this was back we had to submit this to Nationwide who took some time to review it and, meanwhile our solicitor agreed to carry out the searches and those came back after 8 weeks, received the report, fixtures, and fittings, etc and Nationwide came back to value the property at £153,000, we asked for £3k knocked off the price and the vendor agreed to £152,000 so informed Nationwide of this and mortgage offer was issued. So as we stand now, the searches are done with no issues, mortgage offer in place, now I am waiting for the solicitor to get back to me with the Report on Title which has now been almost two weeks and I am having decreased communication with them. I was wondering how long a Report on Title normally takes to compile and from there realistically how long would it be until completion.

The vendor has been pushing via the estate agent for a no later than mid-February completion which after the 13th Jan mortgage offer our solicitor has said would be possible however we are now just waiting around for the solicitors to get the documentation done and they refuse to look at completion dates until the Report on Title is issued (fair enough I suppose I get that). If we could exchange and complete on the same day that would be excellent but my solicitor just won't get back to me on my inquiries. The property is currently owned by a house builder and was taken as part-exchange from previous owners, so the property has vacant possession. 

Hi,
Sorry for jumping in on this post, but I'm currently experiencing a similar thing. 
For your Damp and Timber report, did you need to use a RICS or PCA provider?

Been trying to get a mortgage sorted for over 3 months now. Still no progress made.

Thanks